


We'll be fine, maybe

by Nakimochiku



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-17
Updated: 2014-02-17
Packaged: 2018-01-12 19:40:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1197030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nakimochiku/pseuds/Nakimochiku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Who in their right mind thought giving him custody of a brat would be a good idea? He can barely keep himself alive, never mind a kid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We'll be fine, maybe

i

Levi doesn't think he's the best choice when Mikasa's parents kick the bucket, and it's pretty much a bake off between him and the Jaegers. The Jaegers are obviously a better choice; they have a son Mikasa's age, Mrs Jaeger is the world's best cook and has more than two default expressions, Mr Jaeger has a steady source of income.

Yet the brat still sidles up to him, dark eyes wide and dewy, and twists her fingers in the leg of his pants. She isn't a baby, but that action is so vulnerable he has to pick her up and cradle her. He can't even tell her everything is going to be okay. She's made the worst fucking choice on who should adopt her, he's fairly sure she has a nut allergy, so he can't even keep her well fed on peanut butter sandwiches, the only thing he can aptly make.

They're both utterly screwed. But Mrs Jaeger, her hand on her son's shoulder, still manages to smile warmly. "Don't you worry." She says to Levi. "The two of you will be just fine, I can tell."

ii

Mikasa starts fifth grade late. She's spent the summer mourning in her own, quiet way, and her mourning bleeds right into the start of the school year until she steps up to Levi at the kitchen table and says "I think i'm ready."

Well, he can't argue with that. He fixes her a blackberry jam sandwich, only the top crust cut off (because Mikasa likes her bread in a perfect square. Levi wonders if OCD is something they have in common), packs it in her back pack with an apple juice box, two pencils and a note book, and sends her off with Eren Jaeger who promises solemnly to look after her,

After two months and a bit of having her just sort of there, sitting quietly on the living room floor and studying relics of her old life, a happier life, Levi isn't used to having the apartment empty any more. He cleans. Scrubs the floors till they sparkle. Does the laundry. Arranges his CD collection alphabetically and stacks his dishes by size. The work lulls him, until he can forget for a bit that Mikasa isn't there.

By the time she comes home, Levi is working on sorting the books in the house. "Hey." He says lamely. Between the two of them, there's about as much conversation as in a library. She nods to him, and places her bag neatly at the door. "How...was school?" He tucks a book into its place and tries again. "Did you make friends with any of those little shits?"

Mikasa shrugs. "Bullying Sasha is fun." she says. That surprises a chuckle from him. She'll be alright, he thinks. She'll be just fine.

iii

"May I go out with Eren and Armin and Armin's grandfather for Halloween?" Levi blinks at her over the edge of his book. She doesn't look particularly desperate. Or even interested in his answer, as though she would do what she wants regardless. Levi shrugs, his universal Do-What-You'd-Like gesture, and Mikasa offers him a small smile. At what point did they become able to understand each other's nuances? "I have no costume." She reminds.

"Well if you're going to be living with an art Major, you might as well reap some of the benefits." He closes his book and raises a brow at her. "What do you wanna be? Nothing kinky now."

Mikasa hums very softly. "I wanna be a samurai."

"Kick ass Samurai Mikasa coming right up." Halloween is in two weeks, so they get started right away. Levi can't remember the last time he touched his paints, but he breaks them out now. He crafts her a katana from cardboard, A kimono from old sheets, a helmet from a plastic bowl and paper mache. By the time he's done, she could have been the shogun's right hand man.

He waves her off on Halloween night, and she waves her little cardboard katana back at him as she hops down the steps to join Eren and Armin on the sidewalk. If he feels lonely repeating his typical Halloween tradition of watching all the Saw movies, well, it's not like Mikasa's there to give him her typical knowing look.

iv

The only things Levi knows about cooking are as follows: Don't over cook, don't under cook, and while it seems Rachel Ray knows what she's doing, she does not. It takes many long hours, a couple of off stomachs, and some disastorous trial runs with various spices before he can even get chicken right. 

But Christmas is coming up, and while Mikasa is kind about his cooking (it's not like she can do much better, she's blackened toast like charcoal), he doesn't think it'd get them in the "good will to all men" mood if they're munching on raw turkey all christmas break.

He orders in. He's not really sure what to get Mikasa, so he buys her a big book about samurai that might be a little too old for her. They sit on the couch together, eating cranberry sauce straight from the can and watching Its a Wonderful Life for the fifth time in as many days, and it's good.

He glances at Mikasa. she glances back and spoons another glob of cranberry sauce into her mouth. yeah, it's good.

v

Mikasa's birthday kinda sneaks up on him. Between a new job and making sure she hasn't wasted away, Levi's head is sort of in the clouds. She doesn't seem to mind all that much, even the night before when Levi is standing at the door, leaning against the frame watching her get comfortable. He has a night shift in twenty minutes, and he hates leaving her alone. But she always assures him in her soft little voice that she's old enough to be on her own.

"Oi, little shit." He calls her affectionately. She kisses her teeth at him, an abrupt noise she must have picked up at school. He'll teach her a lesson for that later. "What'd ya want for your birthday?" She shrugs, and settles under her covers. They have her favourite cartoon characters on them. "Don't be like that, I'll feel like shit if I don't get you something."

"Read to me." She replies, and makes room at the end of the bed. She pulls her samurai book from beneath her lamp on the bedside table. Levi sighs and takes a seat, opens the book to a page she has marked.

"The Samurai believed in Bushido, the--"

He's five minutes late to work.

vi

He ends up designing her a mural. Its a work in greens and blues and pops of reds. it takes him two days, three phone books and a step ladder to complete the sketch on the wall. They paint it together. Mikasa reserves herself the red parts, traces the lines with her brush with steady hands and unending patience. Levi prefers to smear the paint everywhere and clean up his lines later, feels as though it goes faster.

Not that he's really rushing the time he spends with her.

They don't talk at all, as is their wont. He has really shitty punk rock playing in the background, Mikasa hums under her breath. He thinks that they can commnicate with only a series of looks, because she pauses, fixes them both blackberry jam sandwiches, and returns. They munch on them together, Levi smearing green, and Mikasa tracing red.

"Best birthday present ever." She says, stepping back to observe their work. She gives him a small, rare smile. "Even if it is three weeks late."

vii

Levi hates Mikasa's Karate teacher. The man talks too much, teaches too little. His stances are wrong. This entire thing is a waste of money. But Mikasa likes it. Mikasa practically fucking glows while she works through her Katas, and Levi is left slumped in a hard plastic seat that's probably seen more filthy asses than he even wants to think about, and watches her.

she looks kind of cute in her gi, it offsets the stark black of her hair. So perhaps the entire venture isn't that much of a waste. or he tries to pretend he thinks so until the sensei gets around to teaching them judo. The way he goes about it is an affront to Levi's senses. and he doesn't wanna hype himself up, but he's a fucking black belt, and that is not how one goes about an arm bar.

He doesn't call the man out on his shit. but when they're home, Levi pushes aside the couches and the coffee table to clear a space in the tiny living room. Mikasa blinks at him when he bids her leave her gi on, and join him on the floor.

"So this," he says as he shows her step by step each movement at precise angles. "is how you do an arm bar." 

viii

Mikasa leads him into parent teacher interviews by the hem of his jacket, while he adjusts his tie and hopes that the knuckle tattoos don't make him look like a convicted felon. Technically he is a conflicted felon, hence the knuckle tattoos, but Miss Ral doesn't need to know that.

Miss Ral is a kindly girl, fresh out of teacher's college, bright eyed and sweet. she's full of glowing praise for Mikasa's wit, slightly less praise concerning her difficulties making friends, and then reprimands regarding Eren, Armin, and the playground scraps they like to get into with the other kids. Mikasa contrives to look unaffected by it all, picking through Levi's pockets until she finds a hard candy to suck.

"If Mikasa were just a bit less quick to anger, she'd have a perfect career back at school." Levi shoots Mikasa a side ways glance.

"Hear that, brat?" he asks dully, while Miss Ral blinks at the name. he remembers then that people aren't supposed to talk to their kids like that in public. Whatever. "Stop thinking with your fists."

"Not my fault Eren needs backup." Mikasa shrugs. Levi shrugs too, and knows, the way Miss Ral does not yet know, that means Mikasa's never going to stop thinking with her fists. 

And anyway, she might as well put those karate lessons to use.

ix

Levi receives the call just as he's getting into work. A calm, matronly voice informs him that "your child has been in an altercation, and sustained a broken wrist and a bump to the head, if you could please--" he essentially gets in the front door and turns back out again, shouting something about an emergency to Erwin over his shoulder.

He finds Mikasa in the nurse's office, a bit of gauze taped to her forehead, her wrist carefully bandaged. There are streaks of salty tears dried on her cheeks, and she doesn't even try to scrub them away, instead looking darkly at the floor as though she longs to vaporize it.

Levi wants to grab her shoulders and shake her for her stupidity, wants to wrap his arms around her and hold her to him. He settles instead on laying his hands on the back of her neck. He waits until she looks at him, and they share a moment before he relents. "Alright." he says. "Doesn't make you any less dumb though."

She kisses her teeth at him, he flicks her cheek. He doesn't tell her never to scare him like that again.

x

Mikasa is fourteen. It's her first day of high school. She's had all her hair cropped off because she wanted to "change." Levi mourns the loss of all that long black silk.

Levi scrubs at the kitchen sink meticulously. Mikasa's lunch waits for her in a little paper bag on the counter. A blackberry jam sandwich with the top crust cut off. It's more a tradition now than anything else. 

She grunts at him on her way out the door, and he grunts back.

He thinks about the summer just passed. Thinks about standing with her at her parents graves, staring at the plain marble headstones where four years ago a girl had pulled at his pants and begged to be lifted like a child. That was just before Mikasa cut her hair too, and when he thinks about it, perhaps lopping off her hair signified she was moving on. 

Levi doesn't care about that so much. He just remembers looking at the Ackerman headstones and thinking, yeah. We'll be fine. Just fine. Maybe.


End file.
